


love is a vicious animal

by pprfaith



Series: Wishlist 2011 [1]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Supernatural
Genre: Angst, F/M, M/M, Multi, POV Second Person, Purple Prose, Siken-Style, Sort of Poetry, Threesome - F/M/M, Weirdness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-29
Updated: 2011-12-29
Packaged: 2017-10-28 10:38:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/307000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pprfaith/pseuds/pprfaith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are two men. You sit between them. All your eyes are green.</p>
            </blockquote>





	love is a vicious animal

**Author's Note:**

> **Prompt/Prompter:** Buffy, the Vampire Slayer/Supernatural, Buffy/Dean/Sam. _I won't mistake you for problems with me, I won't let my moods ruin this you'll see,_ \- for Ash
> 
> Yes, this is weird fuckery. No other word for it. Enjoy.

+

1.  
There are two men. One of them is tall, far too tall, with dark hair and green eyes and a tattoo on his collarbone, scars on his hands and a knife at the back of his waistband. The other is tall too, but not quite as tall as the first. He has dark hair and green eyes and a tattoo on his collarbone, scars on his hands and a revolver at the back of his waistband. You sit between them, literally, figuratively, metaphorically. You sit between them and they watch you with the green eyes, touch you with their scarred hands. Your shadows mingle on the floor.

2.  
One of the men tells you he loves you in a bar in Iowa, the other whispers it into your skin in the backseat of his car. Both are telling the truth. Both mean it. Both hold onto you in the dark, like children clutching a favorite stuffed toy. They use you to fend off the horrors of memory that lie between them like gaps in the world. You let them.

3.  
That is a lie. They don’t use you. You use them, as shields and swords and walls against the memories of falling, of flying, of dying and living. Living hurts the most, like a hole in your middle. Curl into yourself like a snake and look through the hole in your middle at everything that lies behind you. Cry. Cry for all that is lost, for what lies behind you. Cry for the men, green eyes and green eyes, who have no holes, but gaps in their souls, spreading between them on the ground like spilled ink, spilled blood. Soaking the carpet.

4.  
You use them and they use you and sometimes, they use each other. They are brothers, dark hair, green eyes. That is wrong. They should not. But they do. You try not to judge. Don’t judge. You try but we are all the products of our childhoods, shaped by what we were taught. You were taught that what they are is wrong. Shape the word between your lips, round them over the vowels, kiss the consonants, blow on the last letter. Make it dirty. Let it flow. _This is wrong_. You are hungry. Outside, a car misfires. Gutshot.

5.  
They don’t look wrong, tangled together naked and asleep, with you spread over them as their shield, their favorite stuffed toy, last bollwerk against the dark.

6.  
 _Bollwerk is a German word. It means a wall made of wood and earth. Metaphorically speaking it is a last defense._ You have always been that. There are scars on your hands to prove it, crisscrossing like train tracks, like roads. Follow one of them to the end and fall off the edge of the world. You use them, your hands, to hold the hole in your middle closed because you are afraid it will suck them in, devour them in the dark. More stains on the carpet. Close your eyes. It’s dark outside. Look away. Just look away.

7.  
While you hold yourself closed they fight. Let’s call it fighting. They stand on either end of the room, the gaps between them holes in the floor, deep as the world. They yell. Their voices ring inside your head and you try to turn them into a song but can’t. Some things have no melody. They yell because they love each other too much. Their love is a vicious thing, a terrible animal that breathes heavily in your ear, so loud you can’t hear yourself think. It fills the room with its bulk. Look at it, just look. It covers the holes, hides them under its bloated bulk. It’s a trick, because they are still there – the holes - and you can still fall into them, all three of you can fall into the darkness of the holes, the gaps. The animal called love hides them but doesn’t fill them up. It breathes in your ear and you clutch at your middle and whimper for them to stop, _please stop_. They look at you with pity, look at each other with anger. Something burns. It smells like soulfire.

8.  
Forget this. Forget everything. There are no two men, no two brothers. There are three of you in this room, green eyes, scarred hands. There is a stake at the back of your waistband. You are the same. You are identical. There is only one person in the room and they have green eyes, scarred hands. Only one person and an animal called love that is vicious and cruel and chews at your insides.

9.  
You should set it free, should throw it at the world like a bird and let it fly. But there is a hole in your middle and its gravity always draws love back in, devours it. You are like a snake, you and love, devouring each other, biting your own tail. One of the men speaks, quietly, urgently. _Love,_ he says, _please. Come on. We can do this. We’re… the three of us._ You shake your head and the other one says, _You two should go, just go._

10.  
Make a list. Sit down there, by the bed, make a list. Write down all the things that separate you. Write it down and then read it aloud. Read this: We are too similar. We love too much. We fight too viciously. There is a hole inside of me that looks into eternity. There are holes in you, where your souls used to be before you sold them. What you are is wrong. You shouldn’t be like this. None of us should be like this. There are gaps in the floor. Read this, too: There is an animal in the corner and its name is love. Then get up, fold the list, and set it on fire. Burn it. Burn everything.

11.  
Here’s a secret. Listen: The men are brothers and they love each other so much that they hurt each other, but they hurt themselves, too. Love is a vicious animal and it gnaws on everything it can get a hold of. They love each other, love like an animal with sharp teeth, and they jump off bridges for each other at least once a week, dying as they fall.

12.  
 _You hate funerals. People always cry. At your own, your sister collapsed to her knees and begged for you to come back. You did. It ruined the whole service._

13.  
Watch now, as they lie next to each other. Watch how the dim light from a single, sad light bulb illuminates their skin. Watch their shadows, crawling across the floor, reaching for freedom. Somewhere a door slams shut and the sounds rings hollow in the night. Elsewhere, a demon curls into a human shell, coiling itself tightly. Someone bleeds. You know nothing of this. You see only what’s in front of you. Look away. Please, look away.

14.  
The brothers love each other and they tangle together in bed like art, like beauty, and their shadows mingle on the floor. The sheets cover the gaps. They love each other enough to hate and they love each other enough to want to give you to the other. You are a present. You are them, each of them and the other. You want to give them yourself and you want them to give themselves to you. But there is a hole in your middle and you don’t know how to fill it and a voice in your head whispers, _wrong_.

15.  
 _Maybe we should split,_ you say. They sit on either side of you, watching you with green eyes that turn black when they fill with sorrow. _Maybe_ … _No._ One of them says. You can’t tell which because their voices are the same. You smile at them both and wonder which one loves you in Iowa, which one in his car. Is there a difference? It’s getting dark outside. It always gets dark. Your shadows undulate like lovers, like one person with three heads. You are the same. There is only one person in the room, one person and love and the gaps. Silence stretches and you must say what no-one else will. Say, _I love you_.

16.  
Please.

17.  
You are one person and you are three and you tangle together in the bed like vines growing around ruins. Metaphorically. Figuratively. Literally. The sheets cover the gaps and you pull them up to your chest, make them cover the hole in your middle. On the nightstand, a knife, a revolver and a stake lie. In the corner, love crouches, like a tiger, like a favorite stuffed toy come to life, ready to attack. It’s vicious and ugly and it breathes in your ear, loud and heavy. You fall asleep and dream of German words.

18.  
You wake again in the half-dawn light. Your shadows lie slaughtered on the floor, their bodies lost in the dark. They never made it to the door. There is no escaping. Love licks a wet stripe down one side of your face. You scratch behind its ears and it flashes its teeth in a lazy grin, continuing to breathe. Close your eyes. Burn everything.

+


End file.
